If your claim is over $5,000, you must reduce your claim to $5,000 or less in order to make an application for dispute resolution at the CRT. This means you “abandon” the amount that is over $5,000. But be aware that once you abandon an amount, that part of your claim is gone and you can’t claim for it again, at the CRT or anywhere else.

The CRT is not able to decide certain disputes. Some of these will need to be filed in BC Supreme Court, BC provincial court, or with another tribunal. Others may not be valid legal claims at any court or tribunal.

The CRT cannot decide matters related to terminating or dissolving your interest in land or your strata lot.

The CRT cannot resolve disputes by or against former owners of strata property.

If a dispute is not resolved by agreement, and a tribunal member makes a final decision, the unsuccessful party will be required to pay the successful party’s tribunal fees and reasonable dispute-related expenses unless the tribunal decides otherwise.

This can include some or all of the following:

any tribunal fees paid by the other party in relation in the dispute

any fees and expenses paid by a party in relation to witness fees and summonses, and

any other reasonable expenses and charges that the tribunal considers directly related to the conduct of the tribunal dispute resolution process.

Except in extraordinary cases, the tribunal will not order one party to pay to another party any fees charged by a lawyer or another representative in the tribunal dispute process.

You may be able to find out on your own whether or not the CRT will be able to help you. The first step is to use the CRT’s self-help tool, the Solution Explorer. It will help you learn more about your problem, and what you might be able to do to resolve it. The Solution Explorer may also give you letter templates to send to the other party, and can tell you what your legal rights are.

At the end of your exploration, if the Solution Explorer says that your problem is something the CRT can help with, then you can file an application for dispute resolution online. The CRT will receive your dispute application, and a Resolution Support Clerk will review it. If the CRT determines that it can’t help you, a Resolution Support Clerk will contact you to let you know.